


Better Ways to Get What You Want

by shadowsapiens



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Banter, Flirting, M/M, Makeup, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Scheming, post-DLC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25480672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowsapiens/pseuds/shadowsapiens
Summary: Yuri doesn’t want anyone to know he’s been reading up on Almyra, and especially not the youth he finds at his door.
Relationships: Yuri Leclerc/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 10
Kudos: 61
Collections: Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020





	Better Ways to Get What You Want

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Panny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panny/gifts).



> Thank you so much for requesting this ship! I had fun digging into this moment, and I hope you enjoy <3

Yuri’s head aches, and the words swim on the page in front of him. Ever since the thwarted ritual, he’s been tiring too quickly. He feels like he’s aged twenty years in the past three weeks. Balthus and Hapi keep saying he should sleep more, and Professor Byleth says he can’t start training with her for at least another week. 

That’s fine. He has work he can do in his room. He rubs his brow, careful not to smudge the powder into his eyes. If only he wouldn’t get so tired.

Working is better than resting, though. Keeps his mind off other things.

His reading and moping alike interrupt with an unfamiliar knock on his door. Not Hapi, who taps far too quietly. Not Balthus, who never knocks because he sleeps here too, and not Constance, who used to forgo knocking until the day she walked in on Balthus naked, and now nearly takes the hinges off with her pounding instead. 

Just a normal knock. How novel.

“One moment,” Yuri calls. He closes his eyes and breathes, pulling his mind back from his task and his exhaustion. Then he closes his waterlogged copy of _Compendium of Almyran Crestology_ and tucks it inside his desk drawer. He then opens _The Careful Homemaker’s Guide to Household Poisons_ —which helpfully notes the precise lethal doses that should _not_ be used—places his pen carefully on a page, and gets up to answer the door. 

One hand rests at his belt knife, as usual.

Yuri doesn’t want anyone to know he’s been reading up on Almyra, and especially not the youth he finds at his door. Claude von Riegan looks both out of place and perfectly at home in the depths of Abyss. He’s far too cheerful—but it’s a facade of cheer that Yuri knows well. 

“Claude.” Yuri feels rather underdressed for the visit. He likes to put on a presentable guise for nobles, even unusual nobles like Claude, but right now, he isn’t even wearing shoes. “What brings you to my humble home at such an hour?”

Claude grins. “Sorry if I’m disturbing you.” He doesn’t sound sorry at all. “I need a favor.”

Yuri lifts an eyebrow. “My favors don’t come cheap.” But he steps back from the doorway and gestures. His hands are nowhere near his dagger.

Claude accepts the invitation and stretches his hands behind his head, looking around. “Nice place,” he says. “Cozy. Does the big guy even fit in that bed?”

Yuri doesn’t miss the way Claude’s eyes skate over the first aid pack on the floor. The freshly polished shoes under the bed. The open pages on his desk. Let him look; Yuri’s already hidden everything he has to hide. “You should see him try,. it’s pretty funny,” he answers. “Now, usually I’d offer tea, and you could stall for another hour if you wanted. But it’s pretty late, and I can’t remember if good little academy boys have a curfew.”

Claude laughs. “Ouch, you wound me. Your makeup looks amazing.” He lifts his hand before Yuri can formulate a response. “I need you to do mine.”

Yuri blinks. “Congratulations. That’s twice you’ve surprised me tonight.”

Underdressed, unprepared, unbalanced. He’s still used to spending every spare moment obeying and undermining Aelfric’s schemes. He barely paid attention to the three lordlings that followed Professor Byleth into Abyss, except to categorize them as potentially useful in the future. 

He just hadn’t expected to get to that future. Now, he feels behind on research, no matter how much digging he does.

If Claude notices Yuri’s imbalance, he has the grace or wit not to show it. “I’d ask Hilda, but much as I love her, she can’t keep her mouth shut.”

“So you need a _secret_ makeup artist.” Yuri grins despite himself. “How exciting. Pull out a chair—but it’ll cost you.”

“Cost me what?” Claude asks obligingly. 

Yuri pats him lightly on the cheek. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Claude laughs again. He does that a lot, apparently, and it’s nice. There hasn’t been much laughter in Abyss since the Aelfric died. Even Balthus is subdued, and they’re getting better, Balthus looks him in the eyes again, but they’re still not _right_ yet. Maybe Yuri needs this tonight—a random favor, a new clever noble to trade subtle interrogations with, someone he’s broken no promises to yet. Yuri’s head hurts less than it did a moment ago, and his hand tingles with the memory of Claude’s cheek under his hand.

Claude pulls out Yuri’s desk chair and swings his leg over it, sitting backwards with his arms draped over the back. “You drive a very mysterious bargain.”

“Secrecy costs a pretty coin in a gossip mill like this.”

Yuri’s makeup kit is already on his desk, under a sheathed knife and a half-empty elixir. He clears it off and opens it, thinking through what he has. His paints and powers are, well, _his_ , and he has very different coloring than Claude. The base powder won’t work, nor the rouge. Still, he should be able to pull something off. 

“What’s the occasion, anyway?” he asks, selecting a deep, warm brown powder to start with. He flicks a brush against the side of the box, dusting off the last traces of lilac. 

Claude tilts his head up obediently when Yuri moves in front of him, but he doesn’t close his eyes yet. He holds Yuri’s gaze as he answers, “I’m trying to seduce someone.”

Claude’s eyes are _so_ green. Yuri feels dizzy suddenly. He must be more tired than he thought. 

“There’s better ways to get what you want,” Yuri says after a moment. The hypocrisy rolls easily off his tongue.

Claude’s smirk doesn’t falter. “Better isn’t always best.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Yuri tells him. “Close your eyes.”

Claude obeys, and Yuri’s spared that piercing scrutiny. He turns the lamp up on the desk—the lighting’s still not great, but Yuri’s fixed his own makeup in pitch black darkness before. This should be easy enough. 

Should be easy. But Yuri places his fingers under Claude’s jaw, gently tilts his face just a bit farther up, and realizes he’s never done anyone else’s makeup before. He hesitates, still touching Claude, still noting the warm skin, the slightest hint of stubble. The steady pulse. He mentally traces the sharp curves of Claude’s face. The soft fall of hair over his forehead. He takes long enough he expects Claude to joke about it. But Claude just sits there, eyes closed, waiting. 

“Keep your eyes closed,” Yuri says unnecessarily, because the silence is pounding too loud, and brings the brush to Claude’s eyelid.

He’s never done anyone else’s makeup before, but his hands are steady. He pretends he’s picking a lock, or forging a receipt. Creating an opportunity, or something that looks real. He concentrates on the work, and not the light warmth of Claude’s breath against his bare wrist.

The dark shadow looks very different on Claude than it does on Yuri. Better, likely. It deepens Claude’s features more subtly.

“Who are you seducing?” he asks as he puts the brush aside.

Claude opens his eyes. “I’ll tell if you forfeit the favor.”

Yuri snorts. “I just need an idea of his taste. Or hers?” He buries his curiosity beneath pragmatism, even though the question burns in his throat. He wants to know who, and he wants to know why. Is it business? Pleasure? Surely not survival. Claude wouldn’t need help if he were used to this.

“I don’t know his tastes, so I’ll have to trust yours.” Claude’s grin is brighter than the lamplight.

“You shouldn’t seduce someone if you don’t know enough about them.” The advice feels hollow on Yuri’s lips.

“I know enough,” Claude says, “to know he’s worth seducing.”

Yuri touches Claude’s throat, his cheekbone, and thinks, this is nothing like trust. Claude bares his throat because he wants something. That at least Yuri can understand. He smudges the corners of Claude’s eyes with a black paintstick. Not much—Claude’s eyelashes do enough of the work. He fumbles the first eye and has to rub the excess off with his thumb. Claude blinks when he does that, and his eyelashes kiss the side of Yuri’s knuckle. Yuri’s mind blanks out for a second, and his hand lingers a touch too long. 

He truly must be tired. He can’t tell what he’s learning about Claude right now. He worries what Claude’s learning about him.

The next eye goes better, and then Yuri wipes off the brush again and dips it in gold dust. “Take this off before you fall asleep, or it’ll get everywhere.”

“Yes, sir.” Claude is still grinning as Yuri taps the gold powder over the curves of his eyelids. 

He sets the brush down again, and is about to grab a pot of lip paint when he glances back at Claude. And Claude is staring at him. Doesn’t turn aside or smile or deflect when Yuri catches him at it. 

And after a moment, it’s Yuri who’s staring too long.

“I’m done,” he says, because he knows when he’s losing, and he doesn’t need to play another hand. He doesn’t need to test whether he can paint Claude’s lips without trembling, whether his pulse can stand the test of warm breath on his fingertips. “Would you like a mirror?”

“I’m sure I’m beautiful.” Claude grins, getting to his feet. He’s wearing shoes and Yuri isn’t and it feels almost as unfair as the way he smiles. “How can I ever repay you?”

There are a lot of things Yuri wants in this world. None are things he can ask for. He should ask for something simple, like a beer or an archery lesson or a tour of Derdriu. Instead he says, because the question is burning in his gut, because he’ll hate the answer and he’s a masochist, “Just tell me how your little seduction goes.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Claude steps closer. He isn’t grinning now, but his whole body radiates warmth. His eyelids shimmer distractingly. His voice lowers as he reaches out, touches the line of Yuri’s jaw: “ _You’ll_ have to tell _me_.”

The kiss is light and quick, a ghost of a smile against Yuri’s lips. Yuri inhales sharply, instinctively freezing, and is grateful Claude pulls away before he can do something reckless like kiss back. 

Claude winks, and flees from the room.

Yuri stands still for a moment. His hand itches with the urge to touch his lips, and he gives in, half-covering his grin. 

It seems he has a lot more research to do on Claude von Riegan.


End file.
